DOJ sues Texas and Colin Powell chides North Carolina over GOP Voter Suppression efforts

The Justice Department has announced a lawsuit seeking to prevent Texas from enacting the voter ID law that helped spark the recent U.S. Supreme Court case over voting rights. A federal court last year ruled the Republican-controlled statehouse in Texas discriminated against people of color in its redrawing of political maps for congressional and legislative districts ahead of the 2012 election. But the ruling was struck down in June when the Supreme Court invalidated a critical portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required nine states with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval for changes to voting rules. Texas began enforcing the voter ID law after the Supreme Court decision came down.

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The Justice Department is expected to file lawsuits against other states, possibly in North Carolina, which approved sweeping curbs on voting rights earlier this month. On Thursday, North Carolina’s Republican Gov. Pat McCrory heard direct criticism of the state’s law from former Secretary of State Colin Powell at a public event in Raleigh. Moments after McCrory left the stage, Powell said governments should enact policies that “encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.” Powell said the new law sends a message to minority voters that “we are really sort of punishing you.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/23/headlines#8239

From The Secular Jurist:  Powell took another apropos shot at McCrory for ostensibly justifying the state’s new Voter Id law (which includes many other draconian measures) because of voter fraud by saying:  “You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud.  How can it be widespread and undetected?”  Any American possessing even a modicum of objective awareness and honesty understands exactly what the Republican Party is up to – a blatant infringement on the ability of minorities and young people to vote in order to preserve the political power of their shrinking conservative White demographic base.